


Passing Days

by static_abyss



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Character Study, F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-12
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-03-11 23:29:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3336809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/static_abyss/pseuds/static_abyss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peggy Carter loved Steve Rogers long before he became Captain America, and by some miracle, Steve Rogers loved her too. But she was learning that it was all right to love other people, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Passing Days

Peggy Carter loved Steve Rogers long before he became Captain America, and by some miracle, Steve Rogers loved her too. 

The problem, and it _was_ a problem, was that Steve had a horrible knack of thinking the best of the people he loved. Steve couldn't see the burden that was, because Peggy could see Steve's fault even if he refused to see hers.

He was stubborn, so much so that sometimes Peggy wished it'd hurt him if she punched him in his handsome face. Steve never listened, not if he thought the person giving orders was wrong. And while that had helped when he rescued the 107th, it didn't help when he was in an institution built on following orders without question. Peggy could admit that Steve not following orders had led to more good than would have ever come had he never questioned. But it didn't end there. Steve listened to _no one_ when he got an idea into his head. And sometimes, just sometimes, Peggy wished he'd just shut up and do as told.

Guilt usually followed that, because Steve called Peggy's habit of being too demanding, _drive_. He called her stubbornness, _passion_ and _dedication_. But sometimes that didn't feel quite right, because yes, it was true, Peggy was all of that. She believed it, had to, because very few men in the army believed it. Still, when Steve turned his bright blue eyes and eager smile on her, it was sometimes, and just _sometimes_ , hard to believe that Steve couldn't see what Peggy thought were obvious flaws.

James Barnes had understood. He knew what it was like to believe oneself one thing and have Steve believe something else. It felt like she and James were always trying to live up to this perfected idea of themselves. Most of the time, it was good having someone believe in them wholeheartedly. It made both of them, Peggy knew, want to be the best they could, made them want to try harder, aim higher. 

She and James liked each other because, as the two people closest to Steve, they felt like members of an exclusive club. As the senior member, James was always there with a bottle of Schnapps on days where Peggy messed up and Steve _still_ refused to blame her.

"Steve giving you trouble?" James would ask.

"No," Peggy would sigh.

And James Buchanan Barnes would grin his boyish grin that was maybe too hard around the edges, and say, "Ain't that always the problem with Steve?"

Now, months after Steve crashed into the frozen ocean, Peggy thinks that maybe that was a problem. She wanted to marry Steve Rogers then, but it'd been months and Peggy'd had time to think. Steve's problem was that he felt Peggy was so much more than she felt these days. Steve's problem was that he couldn't see how great he was.

On bad days, Peggy thinks she might have gotten tired of constantly comparing herself to Steve, of his constant insistence that he was just a regular guy. Peggy was just a regular woman, but Steve Rogers had never been just a regular guy.

And oh, how Peggy had loved James Buchanan Barnes for knowing it. Because she had never been alone. James had shared her burden, the stress of being the person Steve relied on. He used to sit with her and listen, and Peggy always felt safe with him because he cared about Steve, and he'd _understood_. He'd known without Peggy having to say much.

There was something there, Peggy knew, and she never begrudged James that. Time and circumstance had shaped the connection between James and Steve into a deep brotherly affection. But Peggy had seen James's face when Steve wasn't looking, and she knew the look on Bucky's face the way she knew that secret part of herself.

In another time, James and Steve might have loved each other the way Peggy and Steve loved each other. 

It wasn't another time though, and James had died not knowing. He'd died thinking that he didn't mean as much to Steve, as much to Peggy. James Buchanan Barnes had died without knowing that Steve loved him so much that he'd rather crash his plane into the ocean than live too long without him. And even that, Peggy never begrudged them, because Peggy understood.

She knew that Steve loved her, that they might have been it for each other, but that didn't mean that Steve didn't also love Bucky. It didn't mean that Peggy couldn't stare long and hard at Angie, at the way her lipstick stayed perfectly in place all day, at the quirk of her mouth and the timbre of her voice.

Peggy knew now what it meant to love enough to want to let go. She owed it to Steve to move on. It just never occurred to her that it would be so soon. It never occurred to her that in between all the fighting to be equal, that in between the pain of missing the 107th, and the sorrow at losing Steve, she would find peace again. It never occurred to her that it would be a girl with a pleasant smile that would do her in. She never imagined that the aching hole in her chest would only soften when Angie smiled at her or when she called Peggy, "English," in that sweet tone of hers.

But it happened, and Peggy didn't know how to tell Angie. She'd never missed James more than when she loved someone she shouldn't love. And she'd sit at the café day in and day out, and through the mess with Howard, and through every one of Angie's failed auditions, Peggy just loved her more.

She had a friend in Angie, a companion, a sort of confidant. Steve had had Peggy, and Peggy and James had each other, and when Peggy had no one, she had Angie. And there would never be a time when Peggy didn't love Steve Rogers, but she'd learned now that it was all right to love other people, too.

She finally understood that Angie, warm and kind besides her, was the same beautiful kind of love.


End file.
